Meaning of sciuricide | Babel Free

Definitions

The killing of a squirrel.

rare, uncountable

Examples

“Tree Moss as a Sciuricide.—A man who lives near Templeton has been telling the Times how he exterminated the squirrels with whose holes his land⟳ was honey-combed.”

“Sir,—My old friend Mr. [William James] Stillman’s captivating account of his experiences with squirrels published in the Spectator of December 19th, appeals strongly to my empathy. When, as a boy, I levelled my gun at every bird, great or small, that would give⟳ me a sitting shot, my bloodthirstiness revolted from the massacre of a squirrel; and only once in my very early days did I commit sciuricide, for which abominable wickedness my conscience long reproached me as keenly as if I had been guilty of an unprovoked murder⟳. Very many years afterwards I became possessed of a beautiful specimen of the American grey squirrel, upon which I lavished all the affection which might propitiate the manes of the slaughtered innocent of my boyhood.”

“Any human being who has been so fortunate as to have⟳ enlisted the love⟳, and awakened the intellect of these little quadrupeds, will henceforward, like⟳ Sir Edmund [Monson], regard sciuricide as only some grades lower in the scale of wickedness than homicide, but no less to be abhorred. / Your careless readers will question⟳ the soundness of my mental state when I say⟳ that I learned of my squirrels lessons of love⟳ to all living creatures, such as a varied and dramatic experience⟳ of humanity had never taught me, and which make⟳ it impossible for me even now, though I am an old man, to tell⟳ of their lovely lives with dry eyes (for they are both dead);”

“Within anyone’s memory, we had but one vehicular sciuricide, a gentleman squirrel, on an errand of love⟳. He paid for his disregard of safety rules with his life—as any jaywalker might.”

“Humans hunt squirrels during the fall⟳. “Sciuricide,” death by vehicles, happens as squirrels cross highways. At least one squirrel death has been reported from a porcupine quill in the chest cavity. Ouch!”

“One winter morning a couple of years ago, biking the usual route through my neighborhood east of downtown Atlanta to my preferred coffee shop⟳ in Inman Park⟳, I happened upon a small tragedy. There in the road, beneath the gloomy Victorian façades, bare oaks, and sagging telephone lines, two squirrels lay⟳ dead, side by side—an apparent hit and run⟳. Double⟳ sciuricide.”

CEFR level